


Needs Must

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angry Sam Winchester, Emotionally Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Guilty Dean Winchester, M/M, Peacemaker Sam Winchester, Pregnant Castiel (Supernatural), Season 9 AU, Season/Series 09, Uneasy Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 03:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: When a kind stranger offers Cas a roof over his head, he has no choice to accept.  He’s starving and pregnant, and Patrick is the first person to treat him kindly in what seems like forever.Back in the bunker, Sam has kicked out Gadreel and Dean admits everything that happened which puts their relationship under severe strain.That can wait, though; right now all that’s important is finding Cas and making sure he’s okay.And then all that matters is persuading him to come home.





	Needs Must

**Author's Note:**

> This story has a hopeful, if open, ending.
> 
> I don’t think it will encourage anyone still mad at Dean over season 09 to forgive him for what happened to either Cas or Sam, but I’m hopeful that off screen bridges were rebuilt and Cas and his little baby were safe and loved and as happy as possible.
> 
> Also worth noting that Patrick tries to play on Cas’s being in debt to him, prompting Cas to feel as if he has two options: stay, and face being put into an unpleasant situation, or go and risk being homeless again.

It’s early when Cas gets up. 

He heads into the en-suite, starts the shower, gets undressed.

While the water warms up, gets to the temperature he likes, he stands in front of the full length mirror, and runs a hand over his tummy.

There’s a definite swell there, now. He’s starting to show, and his pants are a little tight, so he’ll have to take Patrick up on his offer to go shopping for new clothes.

He hates it, though, not that he has this kind opportunity, but that he has no way to pay Patrick back.

This man has taken him in, fed him and will now be clothing him as well, and asked for nothing in return.

If he continues to allow Cas to stay here, the angel...ex-angel….know he’ll become more of a burden as he nears his due date.

And what then? If he’s successful in bringing his child into the world, will Patrick let them both stay? Raising a baby is expensive, in the short and long term. 

Cas can’t count on Patrick being willing or able to pay for all their needs for ever, perhaps not even until the baby comes.

No, Cas knows he has to start to plan. He has to find work, save money, start to pay his own way.

There’s a tiny voice in the back of his head that says maybe Patrick _won’t_ throw him out, but Cas can’t trust on that.

He didn’t think Dean would throw him out either, and yet here he is.

Trust is noble. But it’s risky, too risky.

In truth, the only person he can count on is him.

++

Dean’s seen Sam angry, but never this angry.

After it’s over, after Gadreel is gone, Crowley clears out, and they’re left standing facing each other in the bunker, with Dean not knowing what to say, Sam does what Dean guesses is inevitable.

He hits him.

It’s not a love tap, either; he hits like he means it, and Dean goes down hard, and his vision blurs a little as he stares up at his furious little brother.

“I don’t believe you did that. How the fuck could you? What’s wrong with you?”

Dean gets unsteadily to his feet. Blood’s trickling from his mouth, and he can feel where the inside of his lip got cut against his teeth.

“I’m not wrong in wanting you to live,” he says. “You’re my brother. I couldn’t just stand there and…”

“Watch me go through with a decision I’d already made?”

“You’d changed your mind,” Dean protests. “Sammy, you didn’t want to die.”

“I didn’t want an _angel_ in me, either. Where’s Cas?”

Fuck. Dean looks around him, like he hopes some answer that isn’t going to rile Sam further will just appear.

Nothing does, and when he looks back to his brother, there’s fear and suspicion there.

“Dean. Where is Cas?”

So Dean tells him. What else can he do?

He’s not surprised when Sam punches him again.

++

Patrick brushes off Cas’s concerns about the cost of new clothing. He can afford it, he tells Cas.

He has a good job, and a lot of savings, and he wants to share his good fortune.

And, like he can read Cas’s mind, he tells Cas that he can look after both him and his baby. He has good medical insurance through his employer, that covers family, and Patrick can easily arrange for Cas to be included in that.

There’s a certain way he says it that sets Cas ill at ease.

The last two families he was part of…. It didn’t end well, but there’s something in Patrick’s tone that suggests he means it a little differently.

But Cas is tired (he always seems low on energy these days, and yet somehow sleep isn’t so easy to come by) and hungry (he supposes that’s the growing life inside him) so he doesn’t have the focus to follow through.

Patrick takes him for lunch, and Cas dozes in the car on the way back to the house.

++

They’ve been searching for Cas for days, both in person and online, and using the hunter network.

Carefully, because from what Dean says - not that Sam will remember because Sam wasn’t in control of himself for a lot of that time, and he thinks Gadreel might have been fucking with the rest of his memories anyway because everything’s a little fuzzy - the angels were looking for Cas so they don’t want to give away his location to the people who want to kill him.

Cas should be safe at home with them.

Instead he’s who knows where, maybe in another shelter, maybe in a doorway somewhere, maybe…

No. Sam won’t even entertain that as a possibility. But part of him can’t stop it, won’t let him deny the chance of them tracking Cas down, but to a grave. Or on the cusp of checking out in a hospital somewhere because he had no food, no money, no home.

Because Dean took that away from him.

As Sam searches, trying to think like Cas would, what aliases would he use, where would he go, what would he do, he looks up to where Dean’s just finishing a call with a hunter who thought he’d seen someone that might be Cas.

Dean shakes his head.

Damn it. They have a whole country to search, and so little to go on.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Because it feels like Dean’s got a store of secrets, suddenly, and he’s slipping them out episodic style, like this is a drama he wants to make sure Sam keeps watching.

Dean shakes his head, but Sam knows when his brother is lying.

Fine. He can’t make Dean tell him. But, once they find Cas, and they will find him, Sam will find out everything he needs to know.

++

HIs first checkup goes well. Everything looks healthy, which goes a long way towards relieving Cas.

Until Patrick took him in, he barely ate, was exposed to the cold and rain, and he was sure he’d been about to get sick.

But his baby is okay, and Cas doesn’t understand why he wants to cry.

The doctor seems to notice, and looks expectantly at Patrick. “Had you concerns?”

Patrick takes his hand.

Cas manages to get himself under control, and stares uneasily up at him. He wanted to be in the room and, since he was essentially paying for the appointment, Cas didn’t feel able to refuse.

“I was…. I spent some time sleeping rough,” he says, bringing the doctor’s attention back onto himself. “I was worried it have might have caused problems.”

The doctor pets his other hand. “Well, you don’t have to. The baby’s the size we’d expect. A little too soon for determining the sex.”

“I don’t want to know,” Cas says. He isn’t sure why, except maybe he doesn’t care. Boy, girl, all he wants is to bring his child safe into the world and have a way of supporting it.

“Maybe we could find out, later?” Patrick says. “I’d kind of like to know for colours, clothing, you know.”

The doctor smiles. Patrick smiles back.

Cas sits there, quietly, and notices Patrick still has hold of his hand.

++

It’s a complete fluke but maybe two weeks later, Sam finds something.

He’s used an old program of Charlie’s to look for anything that might be at all related to Cas, and it’s a big net to cast, but he has no way of narrowing it down.

Cas could be anywhere, and Sam wants their angel (he will always be an angel to Sam, even if he is human right now and so more in need of help than ever) home so he tries everything.

He finds a medical insurance claim under the name of Novak.

There are a lot of people in America called Novak, and he wonders, briefly if it’s Claire, or her mom.

He opens the search result, starts to read, tries not to get his hopes up.

The patient’s male, and Sam’s fingers are clumsy as he scrolls down, suddenly desperate to get the first name, maybe a description, to see what was _wrong_.

But his hope is smothered in that one instant.

It was a claim for an OB-GYN appointment.

Sam slumps. He’s tired of false trails and dead ends, and he’s tired of being scared to death for Cas and with no way to find him.

Dean comes in then, rubbing his eyes. Sam had sent him to get some sleep when he practically passed out over a book of locating spells.

“Nothing?”

Sam shakes his head. “I thought...but no, it’s not him.”

Dean leans in to look at the screen. “You sure?

Sam huffs at him. “Unless Cas was pregnant when you kicked him out, then I doubt it. This guy was at an OB-GYN appointment.”

He hears the way Dean draws in a sharp breath, turns to see the colour all but drain from his face.

“Dean?”

“Get the address,” Dean says.

“Dean. What the hell are you telling me?”

Dean turns the laptop towards himself, hurriedly gets the information they’ll need.

“Just keep your hands to yourself, this time, okay? That’s Cas.”

Sam almost laughs in his face. How can it be Cas, when Cas has probably had more important things on his mind than hooking up, and besides, Dean hasn’t heard from him since the day _he kicked Cas out_ so there’s no way Dean could know that Cas was pregnant unless…

“You fucker,” he snaps, and the only reason he doesn’t punch his brother, again, is that it’ll take a couple of extra seconds to step over him and get to the car.

++

The vitamins the doctor prescribed all sit in orange containers, with child proof lids that it seems to take Cas forever to work off.

He swallows them with a glass of water, and then makes himself some cereal and sits down to eat.

Patrick sleeps late at weekends, which means Cas gets the house to himself for a while.

He doesn’t mind. He likes the quiet because he can think, and since he has permission to use Patrick’s laptop, it also means he can look for work.

He’ll need to find a way to get a false ID, like the one Sam and Dean have, but he still has the FBI badge they made him. Perhaps he can amend it, somehow.

He has to do something.

Patrick startles him; he’d been so engrossed that he never heard him coming downstairs, but he closes over the laptop just as Patrick pets his shoulders, warmly.

“Good morning, Castiel.”

Cas smiles at him. “Good morning. Would you like some breakfast?”

But Patrick’s already in the kitchen, grabbing a box of oatmeal and a bowl.

“You’re expecting,” he says. “From now on, you need to keep your feet up.”

That has a sound of permanence about it, and Cas is tempted to just agree. He had nothing, nowhere, no one before Patrick spotted him in that doorway, and for some unknown reason took pity on him.

Now he has food when he wants, a warm bed to sleep in, access to medicine.

He’s beyond grateful, but something in him, despite the security Patrick’s provided, is clawing at all of it in some desperate need to get out.

He doesn’t understand, and he can no longer trust his instincts. They’ve hardly served him well these past few years, when it seems he couldn’t, thanks to them, trust himself either.

Patrick eats in silence, makes them both some herbal tea, and then he says it, as if asking what Cas planned to do with his day.

“I don’t want you to leave, Castiel. More than that: I don’t _just_ want you to stay. I want...I won’t lie, I want something more.”

Cas stared back at him, feeling the shame rise into his cheeks. “Patrick, I…. You’ve been exceptionally kind ot me, but you know I have nothing I can repay you with.”

Patrick reached across the table, and his hand comes to rest on Cas’s before he can move it away.

“You do. Castiel, I feel more for you than friendship, and I don’t think it’s bold of me to say you might feel the same?”

He waits, and the smile on his face speaks of a certainty that Cas will only answer one way.

And he could do that. He could lie, and secure his place here, because he knows what the outcome of his other option will be.

But he can’t do it. He can’t let this man, who took him in, who saved him, think that there is something between them that simply isn’t there.

“I don’t,” he says.

The smile weakens but it doesn’t go, not completely.

“You could. In time. I’ve been good to you, Castiel. Even if you don’t love me, liking me…. That would be enough as long as you stayed. You would grow to love me in time.”

But he won’t. He feels a strong gratitude towards Patrick, but he knows it won’t ever be something else.

There are reasons, reasons he can’t and won’t explain to Patrick, reasons that hurt, but he won’t ever let himself be so vulnerable again as to put his love in another human being, not like that.

It was a painful lesson, but he’s learned it.

“Patrick, please. I don’t want to deceive you, and I would be doing that if I let you think we will ever…. Be together.”

There’s a strained moment of silence, and then Patrick gets up and gathers their breakfast dishes.

“We have time,” he says. As he passes Cas, he bends down, sudden and unexpected, and kisses Cas’s cheek before heading over to the sink.

Cas waits until his back is turned, and then flees upstairs, and locks his door.

He doesn’t think Patrick would hurt him in any way, but again his instincts have been so unreliable these past years that he can’t take a chance.

And he needs time to think. To decide what he’s going to do.

Stay, and give false hope to a man he owes more than he can ever repay, and take a chance that Patrick’s persuasion turns to less delicate means.

Go, and face being homeless once more, struggling to survive that and being pregnant and find a way to get a place to stay and employment in time for his child’s arrival.

Put like that…. Neither option appeals, but he has someone else to take care of now, and he has to put them first.

++

It’s a nice house.

Dean stands for a minute looking at it, and wondering what’s going to happen next.

If Cas is actually here, and they haven’t driven all this way for nothing.

What he’s _doing_ here, because this is a _home_ , not a shelter.

Will he speak to them, or just shut the door in their faces?

_Is he okay_?

It’s the urge to know that, the urge that’s burned through him since the night he threw Cas out, that suddenly overwhelms him, and drives him to ignore Sam’s angry insistence on caution, on not rushing in like he always does.

He heads for that door like there’s a pack of vamps behind it, and only manages to knock on it and not pound.

The man who answers isn’t Castiel. He’s tall, fairly built, wearing a smart shirt and pants, a tie hanging loose around his neck like he’s just come home.

He smiles, guardedly, at Dean, and Dean gets it. This is not the type of man, or the type of house where roughneck strangers driving a muscle car and looking like they find trouble everywhere suddenly show up and knock.

Apparently, though he is the type of man and it is the type of house to become a home for abandoned ex angels, because Dean’s glance is drawn over his shoulder and Cas is standing, there, staring back, looking shocked.

But looking good, all the same.

++

Patrick insists on not leaving them alone. 

Sam figures it’s because there two big guys who’ve shown up out of the blue and Dean’s temper is clearly hanging on by a fraying thread.

But it might also be because he suspects (maybe knows) that they are somehow to blame for Cas’s situation.

Sam knows he can’t put all the blame on Dean. He took on the trials, started this whole mess, but he never, ever saw it ending how it did.

No, he has a share in this, but he makes himself look Cas in the eyes.

“You’re looking well, Sam,” Cas says.

Sam swallows past the lump in his throat. “You too, Cas.” His eyes stray to Cas’s tummy, noticeably swollen with the life growing in there, his niece or nephew.

The latest member of their family.

If Cas will still consider it their right to think like that.

A glance at Dean tells him his brother is terrified of that same question, but also that Dean has reached a different conclusion for why Patrick won’t leave the room.

Jealousy is pouring from him in toxic waves, and Sam wants to throttle him.

They have found Cas, he’s okay, and their next task is to get him to come home. Sam wants him there, safe with them again, especially after what happened, especially because of what’s going to, but mostly because Cas is family, a brother to him, one he’s going to care for, and support, and make sure he knows exactly how important and loved he is.

But for all of that to happen, Sam needs Dean to get his head in the game.

“Dean has something he needs to say to you,” Sam says, pointedly, and shoots his brother a meaningful glare.

Dean’s too busy in a staring contest with Patrick, and only looks around when Sam pokes him in the thigh.

Cas gives him a positively glacial look, making Sam wince, and start to wonder if there’s any chance at all that Cas will come home.

“Yeah, uh…. Cas, man, I’m sorry. I never wanted you to go, but I didn’t have a choice.”

“Right,” Cas says. “Those people who were looking for me. You were worried I would put you and Sam at risk.”

Said like that, it’s brutal, and Sam can’t help but look at Dean in open horror. Was that how Dean put it that night? 

“I…. I didn’t have a say, Cas, dammit,” Dean says. “Someone…. Someone was threatening Sam, and I…. Cas, can’t we just talk in private, for a minute?”

Because it’ll be easier, Sam knows, if Dean can tell the absolute truth instead of hinting at it because if Patrick hears them talking about angels and demons and a bunker version of the Ministry of Magic, he’ll just call the cops.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Patrick says.

“I don’t think I was asking you.”

“Enough.” Cas starts to stand, a little awkward with the extra weight he’s carrying, and Sam reaches out for him at the same time as Dean and Patrick. But it’s Sam’s hand Cas takes, and lets himself be pulled carefully to his feet, and Sam takes that as a good sign. “Patrick was kind to me, Dean, when no one else was. Don’t speak to him like that. We can talk in the other room.”

Patrick’s on his feet, a protest on his lips, but Cas silences him with a look. “It’ll be alright. Perhaps you and Sam can get to know each other a little.”

Dean shoots Sam a look of terrified desperation, but all Sam can do is give him one back that warns Dean not to fuck this up. It might be their only chance at bringing Cas home.

Then they’re gone, and Sam stares awkwardly at Patrick, who’s just staring at the door.

Neither of them says a word.

++

Cas listens to Dean in silence, figures he owes him that if absolutely nothing else, and silence turns to disbelief to shock and then to pain when he learns about Kevin.

There are tears in Dean’s eyes as he finishes, and it’s not that Cas isn’t moved.

He hurts for Dean, he suspects he always will, no matter what’s passed between them. But beneath that hurt, entwined through it, is a deep anger at what Dean did.

“I was just trying to save Sam. I never wanted to kick you out, especially after you told me you were-“

“Pregnant,” Cas says, and Dean flinches, but Cas isn’t without mercy. “I believe you.”

_But you still did it_.

“Now I, we, just want you to come home, Cas. That’s my kid you’re carrying, you’re my angel, and I can make all of this up to you.”

Dean almost sounds like he believes it, but there’s no way he can erase or atone for what Cas has been through, even though he can see the duress Dean was under.

But he had options. There were at least ten people Dean could have reached out to, people who could have taken care of him until it was safe to come home.

But Dean didn’t. He just walked Cas to the door, and shoved a crumpled twenty, and change, into his hand and told him to take care of himself.

Cas doesn’t doubt Dean’s sorry, but then he always is afterwards. 

Cas doesn’t know how many more afterwards he can take, especially now.

That’s when Patrick comes in, Sam on his heels, and Dean curses under his breath.

“I’m concerned you’re trying to manipulate him,” Patrick says. “Castiel, you know I’d be more than happy for you to stay here. I’ve cared for you. I will go on caring for you.”

“Now who’s trying to manipulate him.”

“Oh, enough,” Sam says, because this is difficult enough for Cas without it turning into a pissing match. “Cas. I’m sorry for everything that happened, but your home is with us, if you still want it to be. You’re my family as well as Dean’s, and I want you there. I want to help look after you, and I want to be there when my niece or nephew’s born, and I want to help raise them.

“But even if you weren’t having a baby, Cas, I’d still want you home _for you_.”

He hopes Cas keeps looking at him, focusing on him, because he feels like if Cas does agree to come back, it’ll be because of him, Sam, and because the best place for him to be, the safest place is in the bunker.

He sags when Cas nods, and then all that’s left to do is go.

++

It takes them a few hours to get home. Dean drives, which Sam figures is probably a good idea, because the last thing any of them need is Dean saying the wrong thing, and Cas insisting they pull over to let him out.

That leaves Sam to hold up conversation, but there’s no small talk. He spends the trip in the back seat with Cas, tells him what little he knows, tries not to make it sound like he’s giving Dean a verbal kicking.

Doesn’t entirely manage it, and sees Dean flinch a couple of times.

Doesn’t entirely regret that either, but maybe Cas isn’t the only person who will have to decide if they’re willing to forgive Dean, eventually.

Half way there, Cas groans, and rubs at his back, and Sam reaches for him in concern.

“It happens,” Cas assures him, but maybe they should have done this trip in two stages, and let Cas rest overnight in a motel someplace.

Except the fear is still in Dean, and in Sam too, that if they delay too long in getting home, Cas might change his mind.

Still, it doesn’t mean Cas has to sit up uncomfortable and alone in the back seat of the car. Sam shifts enough so that his back is against the door, and he holds out his arms.

“Cas, c’mon. You’ll be comfier like this.”

It’s testament, Sam thinks, to how bad Cas feels and, he hopes, a sign that Cas trusts him, that there’s no hesitation.

One minute to the next, and Cas is leaning against him, settling down, and Sam motions to Dean to toss him back his jacket from the front seat, which Dean does.

Sam drapes it over Cas, and after a few minutes, he hears snores.

Tiny, delicate. _cute_ little snores.

He smiles down at Cas. Maybe, just maybe, they’re going to be okay.


End file.
